Upgrade U

by Ni-Ni Simone

  But the problem was I didn’t feel appreciated.

  And I needed that. I wanted that…. But instead I had this … whatever this was….

  “I’m buggin',” I said, not knowing what else to say. “And I’m sorry.”

  "Seven,” Josiah said, looking me in the eyes. “I know it’s frustrating and yeah, our relationship is different. But going through this will only make us stronger.”

  Maybe he was right. “Yeah.”

  “So, I just need you to swing with me. I got you. Now can you please, help me out just this once?”

  “What do you want me to do, Josiah?” I said, more like I was giving up than giving in.

  “I want you to write my paper for me, please.”

  “All right.” I folded. “But this can’t become a habit.”

  “It won’t. I promise.”

  “Okay,” I said, defeated.

  Josiah rose from his seat and said, “My ride or die.” He winked at me.

  “You’re leaving?” I said, surprised.

  “Yeah, baby, I need to go and check Country. He’s been going through some things lately.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, and don’t mention it to Shae, because I probably shouldn’t have said that to you.”

  “What are you talking about? Is he cheating on her, because if he is I will be telling her and we will be coming through, you can believe that. It’ll be just the excuse I need to molly-whop lil Biggie’s behind!”

  “Would you chill? He would never cheat on Shae. It’s some man-to-man things we need to discuss. Now I’m out.” And by the time I realized he’d thrown me a deuces sign instead of giving me a kiss, he was gone.

  I sat in my seat and stared at all the books on the table. I couldn’t remember how this study session turned into being for me … but it had….

  A million thoughts of what had gone wrong in my relationship rushed through my mind; and just when I promised myself that I would control the things I said from now on and that maybe … just maybe … that would make things better between us, I felt someone standing behind me.

  “I get it now,” poured from over my shoulder. Instantly a smile emerged on my face and I was ridiculously cheesin’ from ear to ear. As soon as I realized what I was doing I capped it and watched Zaire appear from behind me. He leaned against the edge of the table and his seductive cologne made love to my nose.

  I couldn’t stand that he was so cute, and so thugged out, and had a swagger that made him the king of irresistible. He most def could rock the cover of GQ. “You get what?” I tried to fight off my blush … but couldn’t.

  “I get why you tossed me to the left and left me in the shade.”

  “And what did you come up with?”

  “That you have a boyfriend.”

  “By golly”—I stood up and stacked the books—“you’ve got it.”

  “So where did he go?”

  “And why are you so concerned?”

  “I’m not.” He stroked my hair behind my ear. “But he needs to be concerned.”

  I batted my lashes in awe of Zaire’s boldness. “And why is that?”

  “Because, leaving you here with me, isn’t in his best interest.”

  “Really?”

  “Nah, even you know that.”

  “Oh no,” I said sarcastically, “another one on his own sack.”

  Zaire chuckled and said, “Don’t even play me like that. It’s just that I know and you know that this moment, might be the moment, that leads to another moment, that leads to the right moment, and the right moment will be the very moment that you stop running from me and give me at least five minutes of your time.”

  “Just five minutes?”

  “Yeah, that’s all I’ma need.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because after five minutes with me, I have no doubt that you and ole boy will be a wrap.”

  18

  You can be my superman

  Save me here I am …

  —CIARA, “PROMISE”

  Somewhere between me realizing that Zaire had nicknamed me “Love” and his funny imitation of the ice grill I gave him the night he ruined my hair I relaxed my wall of defense enough to smile and laugh…. And at the very moment when I caught myself and peeped what I was doing, it was too late to put the wall back up, because I was all in. “You are too funny,” I said.

  “Yo.” He gave me a one-sided grin. “I thought you were about to cut me that night.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yeah a’ight,” he said, and his southern accent teased the butterflies in my stomach. I swear he was just too sexy. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “No, I’m serious.” I nodded for emphasis. “I’m from Jersey, baby, and we don’t bring knives to gun fights.”

  “Word?” He chuckled. “It’s like that?”

  “Fa’sho'.” I popped my collar and dusted my shoulders off. “Ya heardz me?”

  "Oh, you think you’re tough, huh? What camp you reppin’ for?”

  I carried my silliness on. “I’m reppin’ for the pretty brown girls.” I threw up fake gang signs and Zaire cracked up, which caused me to roar in laughter too.

  Before I could calm myself the librarian’s Easy Spirit heels clicked and she stormed over to the table. “There are no more chances left after this one!”

  Don’t ask me why, but that caused me to crack up even more. “I’m sorry,” I said in between snickers. “You’re right.” I did all I could to calm myself down. “It won’t happen again.”

  Once she left, Zaire looked at me and without hesitation I locked into his gaze. “Let me take you out,” he said.

  That’s when I knew I needed to fall back. I’d been too silly and too serious—all at the same time—and this whole deal had gone on for a few minutes too long.

  “I can’t do that.” I shook my head.

  “Why?”

  “I have a boyfriend.”

  “A’ight.” He paused. “So let’s be friends then.”

  “Yeah, right.” I twisted my lips.

  “Seriously. I won’t push up on you anymore. I’ll let you take the lead; and when you’re ready to be more than friends, you let me know.”

  “And what if I’m never ready?”

  “Love”—he leaned off the table and stood up straight—“I’m not even worried about that. Now grab your purse, let me get the books for you, and we bounce.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder how I’d gotten here—where butterflies jumped in my stomach and my heart thundered uncontrollably for someone other than Josiah. This was crazy.

  "Just friends.” I grabbed my Coach bag, slid it on my shoulder, and handed Zaire the books I needed to take. “We homies, right?”

  “Just kickin’ it.” Zaire gave me a pound as we checked the books out and walked outside to where his black F-150 pickup was parked.

  “Good,” I said, as I slid onto his black leather seats, “because as long as we’re friends I can keep it real with you: a sistah is hungry.”

  “Your treat?” Zaire started the ignition. “ ‘Cause I’m hungry too.” He backed out of the parking space.

  “What?” I said, taken aback. “Don’t kill the dream, Zaire, you cannot be broke.”

  “Me? Broke? Never.” He smiled and looked at me, and our gazes locked longer than they should’ve. “But I don’t go around treatin’ my homies.” He turned back toward the street.

  “Oh you buggin'. Then scratch the boy deal, I could be more like your, umm, sister.”

  He pressed on the brake, came to a complete stop, looked at me, and said, “You could never be like my sister. I’ve already imagined too many things we could do together.”

  “Are you being fresh?”

  “Nah, we pot’nah’s, right? So I’m just keeping it real.” He started to drive again.

  “You keepin’ it real all right,” I said. “Real fresh.”

  He laughed. “So where you wanna eat?”


  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “All I know is that it better be slammin'.”

  “We’re in New Orleans, Love,” he said and made a left onto a major street. “Er’where we go the food is tight.”

  "Aren’t you confident in your city? All I know is that if the food—that you’re treating me to—isn’t good, then it will be a situation. Just sayin'.”

  “What are you, a mafia mami or something? You’re way too beautiful to be so ‘bout-it, ‘bout-it, every time I see you.”

  “Would you have me any other way?”

  “Wow, that wasn’t even five minutes and already I can have you?”

  Silence. Complete and utter silence. I didn’t know what to say to that, especially since I practically slipped out “yes.”

  “Why do you do that?” he asked, interrupting my troubling monotony.

  “Do what?”

  “Why do you freeze up with certain things or at certain times? Why don’t you just say what’s on your mind?”

  “I don’t freeze up,” I insisted. “And trust me, I have no problem saying whatever.”

  He chuckled. “Nah, what you don’t have a problem with is bringing it, Ms. Brick City, but I’m talking about just expressing yourself without all the homegirl ra-ra—”

  “Homegirl ra-ra? That’s what you think of me?” I didn’t know whether to chuckle or be pissed.

  We stopped at a red light and Zaire turned toward me and said, “You really wanna know what I think? I think you’re beautiful, smart, sexy as hell. And I also think that you are a lil extra at times because you’re scared.”

  “Scared?” I couldn’t believe he said that. “Scared of what?”

  “Let me ask you this,” he said as we started to drive again. “You and ole boy, how long y’all been together?”

  "Since high school. About three years now.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Okay,” I said, “you’re thinking a lot of things, but when I ask you what your thoughts mean, you’re not telling me.”

  “A’ight, this is what I think. I think that you and ole boy are going through some things and you’re scared of what or who comes after him, because he was your first boyfriend. You’re scared of being hurt, so you’re holding on to him, hoping and praying that you can press pause or rewind back to a time where you could see yourself being with him forever.”

  “And, what? You don’t think I see myself being with him forever anymore?”

  “Nah.”

  Is it that obvious? “I’ve been with Josiah for a long time. It’s not that simple to cut him off.”

  “I didn’t ask you to cut him off.”

  I paused. “I know … but I’m just saying that I’m obligated.”

  “Really?” Zaire said, taken aback. “Well, you don’t seem the type that would nix an obligation and you sho’ don’t seem the type to be sitting here with me if I wasn’t making your heart skip extra beats.”

  I hated that he was right. I really need to get off of this serious kick. “Ummm yeah.” I tossed a chuckle into the air. “My heart skipped extra beats out of fear, ‘cause first you stalked me and then you practically kidnapped me. So yeah, it’s skipping extra beats ‘cause I’m a lil scared.” I chuckled.

  “Yeah, right.” He looked at me out the corner of his eye. “You’re scared of me a’ight, but we both know it’s not because I stalked or kidnapped you. It’s skipping beats because you’re feeling me and fighting it like hell.”

  I paused and a few sarcastic things I could say entered my mind, but none of them felt like the right thing to say. So, for once, I gave a simple answer. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am scared for a few different reasons.”

  For a few still minutes silence hung in the air, and then Zaire stretched his arm over the seat and his hand draped over my shoulder. I wanted so bad to press my head against his chest.

  “Awwl, isn’t this special,” I said, hoping to get some silliness to change up the seriousness in the air. “You wanna be my superman? Take me, here I am.”

  “You want me to be your superman?” he said without flinching, or laughing, or dismissing what I’d just said as Seven’s mouth being out of control. “If so, just keep it one hundred with me.”

  True story: I didn’t know how to keep it one hundred with him. I didn’t know what to say, or how to act. Zaire was different from Josiah. They were the same age, but Zaire was grown, had an aura that clearly said he handled his business and handled it well. Seriously, Zaire had a swagger that would knock the most experienced woman off of her feet, so you can image what it did for me.

  And I knew that Zaire was too serious for me to be overkill with the silliness. That wasn’t going to impress him, and my sarcasm didn’t amuse him … at least not for long. He seemed like … like he wanted me to be me … but I was scared to be. I’d been that with Josiah and look …

  “I’m not into being all emotional” was the closest I could get to expressing how I felt.

  "All you have to do is keep it real.”

  “I do keep it real, but I have to keep it safe too.”

  “Being safe and being scared are two different things.”

  “And we’re going this deep … because … of … what, a few burgers off the dollar menu?”

  Zaire chuckled. “I don’t eat fast food. And I guess you’re looking for an escape route out of this conversation. But it’s cool, Love, I got you.”

  “I know you do.” I shouldn’t have said that, but I couldn’t help it. I hoped he took it as me being sarcastic, and not as a Freudian slip.

  Not knowing what else to do or say, I turned the music up and said, “Stop the press! This throwback is my jam!”

  Cherish’s “Do It To It” filled the air and I started to sing, “Bounce wit’ it/drop wit’ it/lean wit’ it …”

  “I thought you wanted to listen to the song.”

  I stopped singing for a moment and said, “I am listening to it.”

  “Nah, you live and in concert.” He looked at me quickly and gave me a soft wink.

  “You don’t like my singing?” I slid over—just a little—not too much, but enough. I knew we were sitting a little too close to have placed one another in the friend zone … but I guess … it was what it was….

  “Your singing’s a’ight.” He laughed. “But you probably shouldn’t drop out of school to pursue a career in it. But then again, you’re cute though, so if Rihanna can get a record deal maybe somebody could hook you up.”

  “You are such a hater.” I laughed.

  Before he could respond his cell phone rang. He slid his hand in his pocket, took his phone out, pressed the talk button, and placed the call on speaker. Which completely took me aback, especially since Josiah spent most of his time pretending his phone wasn’t ringing.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Don’t hello me, Grandson,” an older woman with a heavy Louisiana drawl snapped. “Where have you been? Sunday was yesterday and I didn’t see you!”

  Zaire turned to me and mouthed, “It’s my grandmother.”

  “What you got some lil girl you lookin’ at?” his grandmother continued. “Huh, you better tell me something, ‘cause I need to know why me and Ling didn’t see you yesterday!”

  “Well, I—” Zaire attempted to say, but his grandmother’s words ran over his.

  “I said to Ling that it must be, because you smelling some lil girl—”

  “Yo, chill,” Zaire said, and then he quickly added, “I didn’t mean to say that, m’am.”

  “I was getting ready to say I know you’re not talking to me like some street vixen.”

  I was doing all I could not to laugh, but I just couldn’t stop imagining a heavyset black woman with a wooden spoon in her hand, prepared to beat Zaire with it.

  “Big-Maw,” he said affectionately, and for some reason I could imagine him once being five and saying that. “I explained to you that I have to work sometimes on Sundays.”

  �
��Yeah,” his grandmother said and her voice drifted toward disappointment, “but you know it’s only me, you, and Ling. And I need to see my baby at least a few times a week.”

  “Big-Maw,” he said as if they had held this conversation a thousand times, “I’m nineteen, I’m not a baby anymore.”

  "No,” she said, giving in. “You’re a man, you’ve always been a man, even when I was changing your diapers, you had the eyes of a man. But when I don’t see you, I miss you. Which is why I like to cook your favorite on Sundays: gumbo with crawfish, shrimp, and sausage, fried catfish, cornbread, mustard greens, dirty rice, stuffed tomatoes, and beignets with praline and caramel sauce? But it’s okay, me and Ling will have another lonely night, with all this food, and no grandson in sight.”

  Zaire ran his hands over his face. I could tell he was torn.

  But I wasn’t. I whispered to him, “Can you put her on hold for a minute?”

  He nodded. “Hold on for a moment, Big-Maw.” He placed the call on mute and said, “Wassup?”

  “Look, I don’t mean to be all up in your business with Big-Maw, but her spot sounds like the place to be. Now we can kill two birds, she gets to see you and I get to eat.”

  Zaire gave me half a grin. “Are you sure? ‘Cause she is going to talk you to death. I don’t think you’re ready for a bayou grandmamma.”

  “Grandson,” I teased him, “me and Big-Maw gon’ be cool.”

  19

  I don’t need me a basketball player

  All I need is somebody that’s down for me

  —CIARA, “AND I”

  Here’s what I wanted to see: Zaire’s grandmother standing on her gallery and smiling at us.

  Here’s what I never expected to see: how devastated the Lower Ninth Ward still was—years later after Katrina.

  Half of the block Zaire’s grandmother lived on reminded me of what I’d seen on TV five years ago—when my mother and Cousin Shake scrambled for the phone to make donations to the Red Cross. We watched people cry, scream, look for relatives, and hold on to dead bodies as if they were crown jewels. But when the cameras left town and the news stopped showing the clips, I thought that maybe … somehow it had all been put back together again. Especially since in the French Quarter, where campus was, it was pristine.